Why Kil'Jaeden is treated like a fool in this expansion?

[Deleted]

he easily conquered draenor and lordaeron. he had at least 2 victories xD

Pretty sure he conquered thousands of worlds with the lgeion. That doesn't count?

[Mojo03]

Pretty sure they gave up on lore a while ago.

It's just silliness now.

I mean all you have to do to write lore now is get very self-serious and hyper masculine and write whatever crap comes out.

That's pretty much it.

[Deleted]

You have that completely backwards. He should not being saying "You may have killed me but HAHA remember that time I totally fucking got your son to die in front of you?! I WIN!" No he is dying. When you die you don't gloat your victories, you lament your failures. That's how death works no matter who you are. He's lamenting the fact that he didn't listen to Velen because of his jealousy of him and his fear of Sargeras. This is perfectly normal for anybody, no matter how evil.

Yes, my problem is not what he is saying to velen, but the way the whole things goes. I'm pretty sure you (if you raided back then) know how you felt when you defeated the lich king in Wotlk, considering Kil'Jaeden one of the greater characters jsut as Arthas, the whole raid and the ending feel underwhelming to me.

And as i said, there was 0 build up to the encounter

[fooliuscaesar13]

No that's exactly what he should not be doing, but it is basically what he does in the cinematic "hey velen remember the old time...."

If you disagree, how would you have written the ending to this?

Blizzard seems to be a sucker for a redemption story, and that ending tidbit before Velen teleports away is a small amount of redemption. It's his regret that in his anger and mistrust, he wasn't as strong as Velen. You don't have to like it, but it's now the story and no matter how you personally want/wanted Kiljaiden to behave, the people (or person) that wrote the dialogue / story thought differently.
Being near death and defeated doesn't mean you'll always be a stubborn, angry Anakin-type prick to the bitter end. Some antagonists feel regret, because that's how the author wants them to act/feel, and probably because that's how they would have handled the situation when faced with the last few seconds before death.

[Deleted]

If you disagree, how would you have written the ending to this?

Blizzard seems to be a sucker for a redemption story, and that ending tidbit before Velen teleports away is a small amount of redemption. It's his regret that in his anger and mistrust, he wasn't as strong as Velen. You don't have to like it, but it's now the story and no matter how you personally want/wanted Kiljaiden to behave, the people (or person) that wrote the dialogue / story thought differently.
Being near death and defeated doesn't mean you'll always be a stubborn, angry Anakin-type prick to the bitter end. Some antagonists feel regret, because that's how the author wants them to act/feel.

no doubts about that. Everyone has its own tastes, but there is a place for a redemption story (example: Arthas was perfect for that), and in other places you just feel it's a bit out of place. Now that said i'm not amd that Kil'Jaeden is itneracting with Velen , that's okay. But what if isntead of remembering old times with velen he spits in his face like to say "you are all a bunch of clowns, i may have failed, but Sargeras will split your world apart". Somethign like that , showing his devotion to the legion until the very end would have been a greater boost for his character imo

[clevin]

If you disagree, how would you have written the ending to this?

Blizzard seems to be a sucker for a redemption story, and that ending tidbit before Velen teleports away is a small amount of redemption. It's his regret that in his anger and mistrust, he wasn't as strong as Velen. You don't have to like it, but it's now the story and no matter how you personally want/wanted Kiljaiden to behave, the people (or person) that wrote the dialogue / story thought differently.
Being near death and defeated doesn't mean you'll always be a stubborn, angry Anakin-type prick to the bitter end. Some antagonists feel regret, because that's how the author wants them to act/feel, and probably because that's how they would have handled the situation when faced with the last few seconds before death.

THat's the problem though. For 10,000 years he's been an arrogant conquerer of worlds and in the last 90 seconds he get touchy feely regret? No. He should have gone out raging sat us, Sargeras, etc.

[dd614]

They had a chance to build up to his defeat with the Broken Shore time-gated questline but failed horribly to do so.

I agree 100% with this. Every week should have been centered around us thwarting his plans, not going and getting chests or killing random demons. He should have been there mocking the Orcs for being his pawns and the Alliance/Draenei for losing wars and their world.

[Claymore]

The thing is, "evil" just isn't very compelling. People want conflict. Why the hell else would people watch Game of Thrones? Sure, Geoffrey had virtually zero redeeming qualities, but he also wasn't terribly compelling. People didn't watch to see him, but rather to see what he does to others.

Really, people respond best to the "shades of grey" characters. Just like we get sick of the almighty heroes that do no wrong -- like Thrall and pre-Cataclysm Jaina -- we also get bored of villains that act with no real reason, other than "because they're evil".

I mean, how many people would say Mannoroth was a better villain than Arthas? Exploring a character's humanity isn't "cheap" or "lazy writing". It's something people naturally gravitate towards.

If anyone ever wants to take a crash-course on how people respond to writing tactics, watch one of the CW tv-shows, like The Originals. It's all teenage drama that gets caught up on big, emotional scenes, but the simple truth is that those scenes tend to be the most satisfying -- which is why people get sucked-in watching them. It's a big reason people get hung up on Arthas' death, that it actually lacked a lot of that emotional kick (why wasn't he speaking with Jaina, Sylvanas, or even Uther's spirit?).

[Eapoe]

You all seem to be forgetting, we've had unapologetic bosses before. Most just haven't had a cinematic accompanying them. The most recent is very obviously Guldan.
Keep in mind, KJ isn't apologetic. It's not even sympathetic if you understand what he's conveying. It's just a character admitting they were jealous of someone else's (Velen's) power and they chose to serve rather than die.
Also, people are now talking about Arthas. His is not even a redemption/apology arc. He was a man consumed by vengenance against a demon that destroyed and made a mockery of his home. In his pursuit of hunting the demon, he found Frostmourne and became consumed by madness caused by the entity of the Lich.
Neither of these people were characters who lusted for power or conquest, they were just 2 characters who made poor choices yet reveled in the victories these choices gave them. When they were killed, they didn't get a redemption statement, just a few last dying words. In Arthas case it was him returning to sanity after his mind was warped and consumed. In KJ's case, it was a statement of how he felt he had no choice. KJ's statement was actually very fitting when you consider the fact that he addresses the only person there that matters to him, Velen. He doesn't care about Illidan, not Kadgar, and not even the "chosen hero" that helps them. His final words also might have been completely different if people that he felt betrayed him were there (sorry, can't remember the Draenai that shows in the Priest campaign).

[Deleted]

even thou we've killed many baddies. i'd rather enjoy a little game of thrones massicare of a few of our leaders. like totally out of the blue style 2-4 leaders gones in a battle. with some others aswell. and the next exspansions is try not to let the diffent factions appering split us op.. but we keep getting kinda of onezies. of all focus on this one guy well he die or step down or turn evil! roll the dice!..

[McNeil]

Kil'Jaeden has been behind the scenes for way to long, and now he kinda shows up out of nowhere as the final boss of ToS. Its just like with Archimonde suddenly being the final boss in HFC. There has been no real build up for either of them, which imo is just horrible writing as they are considered to be very important bad guys in lore. People can complain about Arthas showing up way to often, but at least you could feel his presence trough all of Northrend as if he was watching you while at the same time he wants to test you. He has also been part of some major lore moments like the Wrath Gate and the invasion of Zul'Drak.

I also feel the need to complaim about that forced attempt to make him feel emotional, while he has been an evil dick for Lord knows how long. Why couldn't he just be...... evil? Its almost like Blizzard thinks that people can't be evil for the sake of being evil, there always needs to be this reason behind them while evil people can just get born that way. The way they portrayed Kil'Jaeden in that cinematic makes him look like a wuss, not the ''Satan of WoW'' where he just loved causing death and destruction upon all who oppose him.

Blizzard dropped the ball big time with Kil'Jaeden, and Sargeras won't be any different. I think its save to say that Blizzard doesn't even really care about the lore that much. You can try to prove me wrong except that.... you probably can't. I mean they can still write decent lore outside of the game, I can give you that.

[Arayaa]

What bothers me the most is that he is Kil'jaeden the deceiver but never really tried to deceive us at all since this invasion started...

Not to mention, I still think it's strange we even had a chance against him. I don't know if there are any major mythic changes, but besides from minimal help from Illidan, we essentially just killed him outright.

In sunwell, we had help from a dragon and the literal manifested power of the sunwell, but still struggled to stop him entering our world, let alone hurt him.

At the end of wrath, we fight the lich king and he DID kill us. It was the light that destroyed frostmourne and ressed us. KJ only gave Ner'zhul a small portion of his power. After that, the LK consumed souls for like 10 years tops, KJ has had 10000 years, he should have stomped us.

Are our artifact weapons really thst powerful? Are we even sure KJ is dead? Mythic may reveal more, but we never actually see him die. It could simply be that KJ told Velen what he wanted to hear at the time as part of some greater manipulation.

[Saverem]

he easily conquered draenor and lordaeron. he had at least 2 victories xD

I meant all wars on Azeroth, he probably conquered a shit load of planets before stepping into Azeroth and getting his butt kicked several times.

[Archibalde]

But what if isntead of remembering old times with velen he spits in his face like to say "you are all a bunch of clowns, i may have failed, but Sargeras will split your world apart". Somethign like that , showing his devotion to the legion until the very end would have been a greater boost for his character imo

What Blizzard was trying to convey (and in my opinion failed to do so) was that Kil'Jaeden was never truly devoted to the Legion. His mentality was essentially the same as most of the people who willingly serve the Burning Legion. "If you can't beat them, join them". In its own, that's perfectly fine. They were trying to add a bit of depth to his story. Unfortunately that didn't really work with the character because they failed to develop him for that beforehand.

What I personally think is worse is that they did this right after Elisande. It was the same story. The Legion approached the leader, made a "serve or die" deal. One group rebelled and was forced into hiding. The leader went on to do countless atrocities in the name of the Legion in a desperate attempt at preserving any kind of future for their people. As they are defeated, they reflect on their cowardice and regret not having the same conviction as the leader of the rebel force.

[Stormspellz]

In general all blizzard villains since cataclysm are just screaming failures. KJ wasn't any diffrent.

more like since wrath, LK was a bad Saturday morning cartoon

[Deleted]

Literally ALL your plans failed and you're in a desperate last attempt after countless of failures.... Which also fails.

Yeah, I guess turning countless worlds to ash-covered wastelands and wiping out/enslaving innumerable races is inferior next to three failures of conquering one world.
How understandibly devastating it must be for a near-godly deity over 25,000 years old to fail thrice in the span of 30 years tops.

[MoanaLisa]

That is a topic on it's own, to wich i partially agree for sure. It's really stupid how Blizz is not explaining, developing stories in raid nowdays

Or at all really. Didn't mean to divert the thread at all but I think their lackadaisical attitude toward story and lack of creativity leads to stuff like this.

[Saverem]

Yeah, I guess turning countless worlds to ash-covered wastelands and wiping out/enslaving innumerable races is inferior next to three failures of conquering one world.
How understandibly devastating it must be for a near-godly deity over 25,000 years old to fail thrice in the span of 30 years tops.

Exactly. Dude lived for 25k years turning worlds to ash easily and then came across a brick wall that was Azeroth and tasted for the first time the bitterness of defeat. Must have been extra frustrating for someone who was riding so high for so long.

[Alydael]

I always considered Kil'Jaeden to be a bit of a fool.

He sold out his people and world for power.

The power he gained would never be enough to rival his "masters," so basically he sold out his world and people to be a "flunkie....."

Yeah, seems like a fool to me.

[Rampant Rabbit]

They had a chance to build up to his defeat with the Broken Shore time-gated questline but failed horribly to do so.

I agree. They missed a great opportunity.